SEAT accelerates the introduction of mass plans to build a new plant in China

Except for the public themselves, no one can stop the German car manufacturer from "Fort Wolf" from advancing to the world's car "throne" that it has always dreamed of.

At the 64th Frankfurt Motor Show opened last week, Martin Wendeng, CEO of Volkswagen Group, smiled and made a gesture of “winning” with his right thumb. He became the public to catch up with Toyota and GM and quickly climbed to the top of the world car. The ambition of "The Throne". In the eyes of the global media, Wendeng first explained the sales, cost and profitability goals of Volkswagen before 2018.

Volkswagen announced that it will invest 62.4 billion euros (86.1 billion US dollars) in the next five years for plant construction and research and development models. Among them, by 2016, Shanghai Volkswagen and FAW-Volkswagen will also invest another 14 billion euros (about 122.5 billion yuan), a 40% increase from the previous planned investment of 10 billion euros in China in 2015.

Like Toyota, which is inseparable from the United States, in the 2018 “Winning Championship” hand-crafted by Wendyne, China, as the largest overseas market and source of profit for the public, has been given an irreplaceable key role.

"Absolutely speaking, China will continue to lead the growth of the passenger car and light commercial vehicle market. It is expected that the total sales volume will increase by more than 50% to over 28 million by 2018." Wendorn said that the public plan is In the next seven years, eight new factories will be built, and China may occupy more than two of them. This means that in addition to Foshan and Yizheng, Volkswagen will build a new factory in China.

The significant increase in production capacity in the Chinese market, and the introduction of new brands and products including SEAT SEAT into China, have become an inevitable move for the public to consolidate and further expand the market in China. The reporter learned from the information inside Volkswagen China that the pace of SEAT's entry into China from this year will be significantly accelerated, and its imported car products will land in China in 2012.

SEAT's Mission For Winterkorn's 2018 "Winning Championship", the "half-way out" SEAT brand is at best just the icing on the cake rather than the snow. Because only relying on the three brands of Volkswagen, Audi and Skoda, Volkswagen is already alive and well in the global market.

Since 2009, China has become the largest global market for the public for three consecutive years. By 2010 almost 25% of the total mass of 7.2 million vehicles in the world will be sold. From January to July this year, VW Group's sales in the Chinese market increased by 16.4% year-on-year to a record 1.29 million vehicles. It is expected that by the end of this year, Volkswagen’s sales in China will exceed 2 million for the first time.

Obviously, the public is not satisfied with this. All indications are that from this year onwards, the "Sialt Plan" which has been brewing for three years within the Volkswagen Group has quietly accelerated. At present, within the Volkswagen China, a "Sialt Project Team" consisting of more than a dozen markets and public relations personnel has been established. Its main function is to introduce the SEAT brand to China as soon as possible.

SEAT turned out to be the largest car company in Spain and was founded in 1950 in Barcelona. In 1983, Volkswagen AG bought most of the loss-making SEAT shares and operated it together with another joint venture, the Spanish government, making SEAT a subsidiary of Volkswagen AG.

"At the end of the year, the Guangzhou Auto Show, the SEAT brand will have a big move." Informed sources close to the public in China disclosed that after the initial low-key debut in the Shanghai auto show at the end of April this year, SEAT will be promising at the Guangzhou Motor Show at the end of November. For the first time, independent brands and exhibition booths will be exhibited. At that time, whether or not the company will establish the SEAT China, import car channels and management puzzles will reveal the answer.

On the timetable, SEAT has used 2012 as the first year to land on the Chinese market. Dr. Richard, Executive Vice President, R&D, SEAT Corporation. Matthias Rabe confirmed to the media at the Frankfurt International Motor Show that opened last week that the two SEAT models Leon and Ibiza will be imported into the Chinese market next year (2012) and will be sold separately.

"In the past eight months, we have had a lot of decisions. Although we can't communicate with the outside world yet, I believe that the direction of these decisions is correct." For the Chinese scroll to be opened in SEAT, it was Shanghai Volkswagen is responsible for research and development work for up to three years Dr. Matthias Rabe paused.

“We will decide on the domestic issues of the latter period based on the sales of imported cars.” Rabe cautiously stated that for the much-watched SEAT domestic plans, there is currently no timetable for public disclosure. However, market analysts predict that, whether it is from the global strategic heights or from the decline in sales of the saved Seat brand, producing SEAT in China is "the best choice."

"The SEAT may become another chip behind the VW and FAW equity transactions." The analysts said that taking into account the Shanghai Volkswagen can not operate a good three non-luxury car brands at the same time, SEAT will most likely once settled in FAW - Volkswagen once made . In the early stage of the import of imported vehicles, it was not ruled out that they could temporarily use VW imported cars or FAW-Volkswagen sales.

Wendun's Imagination After nearly 30 years in the midst of Volkswagen's introduction of Seat, Volkswagen hopes to use its time-tested Chinese strategy to "revive" this brand of sports and passion-branded cars. In Wendrun's view, if SEAT can not contribute to the expansion of the Chinese market, at least not to drag the masses around the world to achieve 2018 "winning plan."

Since the inclusion of the public "European map" and the "transfusion" of the public's technology and funds, the SEAT car was once brilliant, but the good days did not last long. In 2006, SEAT once again fell into a loss-making quagmire, with a net loss of 159 million euros. It was also from this year that the industry’s rumors of mass sales of the SEAT brand have been heard.

Although Seat barely achieved profitability in 2007, Seat's global sales have entered a downward path since then. From 2007 to 2010, SEAT sold globally 410,000 vehicles, 370,000 vehicles, 300,000 vehicles and 340,000 vehicles. According to the plan, SEAT hopes to increase the current sales volume of 340,000 vehicles (2010) to 800,000 vehicles by 2018, which is obviously not an easy task.

But if you can catch China's "Oriental Express", Seat may become another "Skoda." In fact, all inputs made by Volkswagen in China, from the construction of new factories to the follow-up implementation of the modular strategy, are always ready to welcome the new brand members such as Seat to “join”.

In the first 8 months of this year, Volkswagen’s sales increased by nearly 15% year-on-year to 5.4 million units. Hans-Dieter Poetsch, Volkswagen’s chief operating officer, is optimistic about the company’s prospects and revealed that the public will continue to increase investment to expand production capacity. This is in line with Wendeng's idea of ​​"building more than two new factories in China."

“In China, we have expanded our Chengdu plant and two new plant investment applications in Foshan and Yizheng have also been approved. We expect to complete the project before 2013. If VW sales in China continue to increase at the current pace, more The production plant is also expected.” Wendrun predicts that Volkswagen will have 70 factories worldwide by 2018.

With 40 of the existing 62 factories in Europe, the eight new plants in Wendeng's new plan are basically located in emerging markets such as China, Brazil and India.

At the same time, some media have quoted internal sources at Volkswagen as reporting that apart from building new factories, Volkswagen will also launch its low-cost models in the aforementioned emerging markets, and the new models that will be put into operation will be based on the public UP! Series build. According to the "Manager Magazine" report, Volkswagen plans to UP! The retail price of the series models in the emerging markets is controlled at around 6,000 euros (equivalent to approximately 55,500 yuan).